Straw repeats: Our war was just

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw tonight defended the Government's decision to go to war with Iraq - despite growing evidence that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was much less than the Government had stated.

He repeated his conviction that the war was based on a just cause.

Mr Straw was speaking ahead of an interim report to the US Congress by the 1,200 strong international survey group searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

He told a news conference at the Foreign Office in London, reported on BBC Radio 4 PM programme: "We did talk more broadly about the nature of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

"The Prime Minister, I recall, very clearly said he couldn't say whether the threat would arise this week, next week, next year or in five years.

"But the threat was very clearly there and nothing that I have seen or heard in the months and years since Iraq has been an issue has moved me from that judgment."

Earlier Mr Straw was reported by Sky News as saying: "I believed then and I believe now the action we took is fully justified and fully justifiable."

The Foreign Secretary said that before hostilities there was "incontrovertible evidence" that Saddam had had chemical and biological weapons programmes.